Glaxo keeps RFID

Despite a recent media report that GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was thinking of forsaking radio frequency identification technology (RFID), the drug manufacturer says it remains committed to exploring how RFID can be used to improve the visibility of pharmaceutical products in the supply chain, and to curb drug counterfeiting and theft, reports RFID Journal.

"RFID remains in place," says GSK spokesperson Mary Ann Rhyne. "In fact, we've extended the RFID testing, and no cut-off time has been determined."

The news article had suggested that by year's end, GSK might abandon its efforts to test RFID tags on individual bottles of products considered at risk for counterfeiting, because the project has been fraught with technical difficulties.

New Zealand health minister Pete Hodgson expects a plan to bar code patients, medicines and staff at public hospitals in an effort to reduce the risk of medical misadventure will proceed, after a committee indicated it would recommend it, reports Stuff.

The government set aside $10.2 million in last year's budget to ensure there were no funding hold-ups if the initiative went ahead. The final cost of installing scanners and developing the back-end systems for hospital wards is not yet known.

Based on the results of overseas studies, it has been estimated about 150 people a year may die in New Zealand as a result of prescribing errors. Between 1990 and 2006, 286 deaths in hospitals were linked to such errors, according to records filed by district health boards.

After introducing driving licences and registration certificates in the form of smart cards, India's Registration and Licensing Authority (RLA) is introducing another initiative: 'encrypted costa smart cards', according to Chandigarh Newsline.

Officials said the encrypted costa smart cards, printing orders of which have already been placed, would ensure more security for information stored, more data storage capacity, and its uniformity in being coded and checked for authentication in other parts of the country.

It will be a special identification mark, which the RLA will put on the new driving licences and registration certificates that it will issue in the coming weeks, to distinguish these from the present smart cards.